Behind the duo of Brandon Miller and Mark Sears, No. 4 Alabama pushed its winning streak to four games with a 91-88 win over Memphis Tuesday night in Tuscaloosa, Ala.
Miller finished with a team-high 24 points and added eight rebounds and five assists. Sears had a team-high 12 points in the first half and finished with 18. Noah Clowney put up 11 points, nine rebounds and a team-high three blocks for the Crimson Tide (9-1).
Memphis (8-3) leading scorer Kendric Davis had a game-high 30 points and five assists. DeAndre Williams added 15 points and nine boards, but fouled out with 6:18 to go in the game.
Alabama did not trail the entire second half. A 9-2 Memphis run, sparked by Williams and Davis, tied the game at 57-all with 9:56 left in regulation, but Alabama scored the next seven points.
The Tigers trimmed Alabama’s lead to 75-70 with 3:03 to play. But back-to-back buckets by Miller, a 3-pointer and a dunk, gave the Crimson Tide an 82-73 advantage with 1:12 to go, enough cushion to hold off a late Memphis surge.
Jaden Bradley (10 points, five assists), Noah Gurley (seven points, five rebounds), Jahvon Quinerly (seven points, five assists) and Charles Bediako (six points, seven rebounds) also played well for the Crimson Tide.
Malcolm Dandridge (seven points, eight rebounds) and Elijah McCadden (eight points) were solid off the bench for the Tigers, although Dandridge exited the game in the second half with an ankle injury.
Alabama took its first lead of the game at 19-17 when Sears converted an and-one after he was fouled under the basket with 8:26 to go in the first half.
The Crimson Tide pushed their lead to 27-23 on a 3-pointer by Miller with less than five minutes left in the half. The Tide led 36-33 at intermission after a 3-pointer by Quinerly broke a tie with 31 seconds left.
Miller gave Alabama a 42-38 lead nearly four minutes into the second half when he converted an and-one after he was fouled on a driving layup. Bradley made a 3-pointer to push the Crimson Tide’s lead to 55-48 with 12:22 to play.
Before the game it was announced that Alabama’s Nimari Burnett was out six to eight weeks due to a broken wrist.
–Field Level Media
